“A crisis that reoccurs a second time is a crisis that must not occur again. a well-managed plant, i soon learned is a quiet place. a well-managed factory is boring. Nothing exciting happens in it because the crises have been anticipated and have been converted into routine”
–Peter Drucker
Today take a tourist tour around Ghana and one common undignified sight you are likely to witness is massive street trading, traders who have taken over our highways and converted them into shopping malls and uncouth and indiscipline parking of commercial vehicles along national highways, especially during market days. It could be Kasoa, Assin Fosu, Adansi Fumso, Mankessim. Ejusu, Kintampo, Nsawam, Nkawkaw, Techiman and what have you. Both traders and shoppers uncaringly put their lives at risk competing with vehicles for fast shrinking road and street spaces. At Mankessim, resulting from our uncanny ability to finding simple solutions to complex problems, the district assembly constructed a barricade around the precinct of the roundabout to ward of the traders. The traders simply shifted their wares to the end of the barricade and continued business as usual forcing pedestrians to walk on the highway while some uneducated shoppers stop their cars on the highway to shop from the traders.
My heart always miss a beat any time I get to Ejisu roundabout and witness the massive commercial activities which take place around the ill-constructed roundabout in the middle of the highway with timber trucks and other articulator trucks meandering their way round the highway taken over by those able bodied individuals, oblivious of the danger to their lives, gleefully going about their businesses in that Stretch of Death. The scene at Ejusu is replicated all over the country. Today, virtually all the principal streets of Kumasi have been taken over by street traders making pedestrian and vehicular movements virtually impossible. Construction projects go on with ecclesiastic zeal and reckless abandon which do not meet architectural specifications at Adum and other places despite the fact that Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly has a Town Planning Department. The situation is replicated in all our major towns including the national capital. Refuse dumps provide wonderful background sites for tourists to take selfies.
On the surface, it would appear that Nana Akufo-Addo has taken up an almost impossible Herculean assignment. But let us read what Lee Kuan Yew said. “We cannot afford to forget that public order, personal security, economic and social progress, and prosperity are not the natural order of things, that they depend on ceaseless effort and attention from an honest and effective government that the people must elect….and that law and order provide framework for stability and development”. We in this country find ourselves in a situation where a president must divert his attention from national development and growth in order to fight filth because of managerial incompetence, corruption and greed on the part of the educated elites who find themselves in entrusted positions to serve the nation.
Why can we not appoint municipal and district assembly chief executives with managerial acumen and competence who can dream of and construct motor parks with affordable guest houses where articulator truck drivers can park overnight and have a decent night rest to continue their journey the following day? Will that not bring additional income to the assemblies? Why can we not appoint metropolitan and district assembly chief executives who can lead their assemblies into joint partnerships with private entrepreneurs to develop tourist sites and the provision of craft shops, decent restaurants and guest houses at places like Kintampo, Paga, Lake Bosumtwi, Wli Falls, Mount Afadgajo, the pristine beaches at Brenua Akyinum and others? Why can we not appoint metropolitan and district assembly chief executives who do have the foresight to help local entrepreneurs like Dr. Felix Anyaa of Holy SPA at Sogakope to develop health tourism or Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom of Coconut Grove Hotels at Elmina to develop honeymoon tourism in this country by fixing the deplorable roads leading to their tourist establishments.
I have only two pieces of advice for Nana Akufo-Addo. In the first place, the time to feed non-performing, corrupt, greedy political appointees and public servants with the carrot is over. The time to use the whip is at hand. At one time even Jesus put prayers aside and drove the tyrants with a whip form his father’s house. Salifu Amankwaa did it at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. That one man symphony orchestra brought sanity to Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Nana Akufo-Addo should hold a round table conference with all the various political parties in the country and impressed upon them that the fight to clean our towns is a national duty just as we have all joined hands to fight galamsey. Partisan politics must be put aside and a national call to duty should be made.
Secondly, Nana Akufo-Addo should look for Numo Blafo II, the Public Relations Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and appoint him his public image officer for the crusade he has decided to embark upon to clean our towns. When I first heard of the voice of Numo Blafo II on one of the FM stations speaking om behalf of AMA, something hit me like an electric shock which forced me to pay attention to what he was saying. His well-modulated voice and the delivery of his message brought a new refreshing touch to the profession of public relations. Luckily for me, not more than a week later, I saw him on one of the TV stations on a programme with a representative of one group of street traders association. Numo Blafo II clearly did justice and brought honour not only to himself but unquestionable justification to the massive exercise AMA wants to embark upon to clean the streets of Accra.
On that particular TV programme, Numo Blafo II provided me with one education. When the host asked him why they know that street trading is illegal and yet AMA collects tolls form the recalcitrant traders, Numo Blafo II simply and calmly replied that the law permits tolls to be collected even if you are trading in your bedroom. I know Dr. Kwame Addo Kufuor is reading this piece. Doctor, I agree with you that the country and Africa for that matter do not lack good brains. The problem is not the lack of brains in Ghana and Africa. The ingredients to make a good soup is around. The problem is how to fish out the ingredients and use the right recipe to produce that palatable soup which will not give us diarrhea. That is the riddle we as a nation and the black race must solve. I am writing about Numo Blafo II when I do not know him from Adam. Numo Blafo II, from listening to him and watching him from distance, I consider him a brain worthy to work at the presidential palace. But how do we solve the jigsaw puzzle of bringing together all the Numo Blafo IIs to make a complete whole? I pause for an answer.
E-mail: macgyasi@gmail.com
BY Kwame Gyasi